An Unpresidented Presidency
Source: Wordability.net
Donald Trumps ascent to the Presidency this year has already made an indelible mark on the English language. Phrases like Drain the Swamp and Lock her up became an integral part of his campaign rhetoric and are continuing to be widely used, showing the power of finding the right terms and sticking with them in order to get your message across.
But one entertaining linguistic legacy of this year is a word which isnt a word, and ceased to exist almost immediately after its brief birth on social media. In a tweet where he accused the Chinese of stealing a US drone, he described it as an Unpresidented act. The word was swiftly deleted in favour of the always intended Unprecedented. But the power of the President Elects Twitter ramblings is such that once there has been a social media utterance, it will never go away again.
Amusingly, the Guardian newspaper promptly picked Unpresidented as its word of the year, and coined various definitions to do with unfitness for Presidency, the carrying out of un-Presidential acts or the saying of things which people are not really thinking at all.
Unpresidented is already showing signs of catching on in the arena in which it was first coined, with derogatory tweets about the incoming president being marked with an Unpresidented hashtag. It also gives commentators a term which in some ways encapsulates the astonishing sequence of events which we have seen unravel in the US this year. Dont be surprised if this word is used to describe some of Mr Trumps actions post-inauguration and he ends up being hoist by his own Twitter petard.
More at https://wordability.net/2016/12/23/an-unpresidented-presidency/